From the perspective of an average man living an unspectacular and not supremely well-informed life, the experiment of communism was a failure. With the possible exception of Cuba (most of whose woes were caused directly by the disgusting, anti-humanitarian policies of successive American governments), communism has never really delivered what the idea promised. Strangely enough, Star Trek's altruistic society would seem to be the embodiment of shared wealth and resources, and has been embraced warmly by millions upon millions of devotees, but in the real world, where the mechanics of the system have to actually work in real time, the exercise has not, on the whole, been a positive one. Indeed, communism as it has been practised is generally perceived among the nations of the west to be an embodiment of evil. Even the word 'communism' has fallen out of use, replaced by one dripping with the same kind of stigma: socialism.

This stigma has been attached by generation of right wing politicians, apparently short on intelligence and long on ignorance and greed. Capitalism is the darling of the right and so-called 'centre-right' parties of the richest developed nations. The problem is, that doesn't work very well either - unless, of course, you happen to be occupying the privilege-laden upper branches of the economic tree. from up there, everything looks rosy, and since the people who own and control most of our international media corporations tend to sit in the very highest velvet-lined branches, they are more than happy to keep telling the rest of us how lucky we all are, and how nice life really is for us. It's all lies, of course - blatant, premeditated lies. I'll take the majority of us for an example: anyone who needs to work to feed their family is not having anything like as nice a life as those who never have to worry about such things. Simple.

The disgusting, immoral nature of the inequality of wealth distribution (together with the perpetuated, laughable lie that wealth 'trickles down' from the top) is the shame of our modern developed societies. It is the hidden truth which must not be spoken of. Hence the vilification of one particular man in the British media over the last twelve months or so.

Jeremy Corbyn - the man elected to be the left-wing Labour Party leader twice in a year - has undergone a sustained barrage of blatant attacks and general, more subtle bias ever since he took office. I've never seen anything like it - although I'm prepared to admit that I wasn't truly aware of media coverage until I was an adolescent. What's made the difference, I think, has been the truly blatant nature of the attacks against him, and the obvious bias against him - both in terms of his opposition to the sitting government (one of the most extreme right-wing governments ever to hold office), or in regard to the challenges to his leadership of his political party. Truly, it's been breathtaking.

Jeremy - alongside the kinds of flaws that you or I may share with him - you see, has a major problem. He's an old-fashioned socialist. He's a man with a belief in wealth distribution, in a welfare state (if that term isn't too long in the tooth), and in a system of government which does not protect wealth and privilege at the cost of the less wealthy and vulnerable. This makes him the antichrist in the eyes of most of the UK media outlets, although social media seems to tell a different story. The media have been very quiet about the crushing nature of his two victories in successive leadership races, and in particular about how party membership is now at record levels, an increase which began with his initial bid for the leader's role. Major figures in his own party have betrayed him and the party by actively undermining his leadership, and each incident has been seized upon by the media with barely-concealed glee, while progress has been either entirely ignored or grudgingly relegated to side stories. The list of obvious biased reporting/editing is too long to go into here, but it has been - even from this distance - simply staggering.

The blatant arrogance of this alarms me. It speaks of a lack of care about what the electorate thinks or feels. It speaks of an unstoppable machine rolling along doing whatever it wishes with scant or no regard for the mandate (or lack of) for doing so. It speaks of a society beginning to unravel as the needs of a few begin to utterly override the needs of the rest of us. It worries me, in particular with regard to the future of my children and their children.

What are we creating for them? Scratch that - what are the faceless Oligarchs creating fro them? Since they don't give a shit about anyone else, I think we should ALL be worried. Very worried.